Even in Dreams
by Natsumi Wakabe
Summary: Prophecy is a gift given to few elves and fewer humans. It is not always seen as a blessing, especially to a young man who does not yet know who it is that he is descended from.


_Disclaimer: Wakabe Writing Firm doesn't own Lord of the Rings_

_A/N: So, even after NaNoWriMo Camp, Natsumi's still alive. A little crazed, but still alive. Which brings us to this fic, which has unfortunately been on the back burner for far too long. Hope you enjoy, and please review.- Moriah (Secret Secretary, Wakabe Writing Firm)_

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_The dream is always the same. He is standing in the midst of battle, hair pulled from his face and in the armor and battle dress fit for a noble, if not a king. A long sword is in his hands, the hilt terribly familiar and glistening a hot, brilliant bright white in the sun. Before him there is a legion of dark creatures and enemies. Beside him, comrades of many nations, each with fear and determination mixed in their eyes like a bitter drink, knowing that this is an impossible battle that many will not see the end of._

_But despite the overwhelming odds, despite the fact that he can feel Death Itself breathing a promise in his ear, he does not feel anything but a calm acceptance and a resolve he had never felt before._

_Suddenly, a blinding light comes from atop a dark tower, miles high. He can hear a siren's call for surrender, feels the cold hand of fear grip him at the shriek of unholy creatures and-_

He bolts up in bed, drenched in sweat and gasping for air, fighting against sheets that hold him captive in the cool night of summer air. It takes him a little longer than usual to realize that he is safe at home, safely kept in his room. Eyes eagerly devour the familiar sight of open windows and the plain desk at the corner of his room as he falls back in bed.

An arm is thrown hap hazardously over his face as he fights to regain control of his breathing. He fights to calm his mind, convince himself that what just happened was only a dream, but he has always known better, no matter how much he sometimes wished to fool himself.

Though he is under no illusion of the fact that he is no elf, he does not fully understand what his lineage give him having only the briefest amount of years with his mother, and only a vague recollection of a man that he somehow knows is his father. But this, this dream that is repeated again and again, torturing him in his sleep night after night, which brings forth a sense of inevitability and an unavoidable fate; of a kind of bone deep knowledge that this is what lies ahead of him in his road of life. There is only one thing that this can be.

Prophecy.

Prophecy, the gift of peering into a possible future, bestowed from the Valar upon only a few elves and even fewer humans - almost all of which are of the Line of Kings somehow. A gift that he has seen grab hold of his ada and weaken him when he is unprepared for the visions that slam into his body and mind with a force that can leave him shaking and pale, if only for a few minutes. A gift he knows his adopted grandmother obsesses over, spending days looming over her mirror to see even a glimpse of what is to come.

Prophecy, a gift of dreams filled with war and battle, blood and gore, and a large eye made of flames and hate looming over him, calling to a weakness in his blood akin to the gold-fever that dwarves are known to be susceptible to.

Estel gets up and walks to the window, looking out to the calm night. His eyes search the gardens he knows so well for any sign of the calamity he has dreamed to come, finding nothing but a peace that does not reach him. Feeling frustration and anxiety tightening their grip on him, he leaves his room, quietly storming out of the family wing, where he knows his brothers sleep after a long patrol. He passes all the rooms, not glancing behind to the room at the end of the hall where his ada lies sleeping. He can't wake them for this, not again.

So instead he goes to the one place where he knows someone who can understand is there, ready to listen, even if unable to give advice: a silent stone, a monument to a woman he knew for too little, the only physical reminder to the world of a mother who sacrificed so much to preserve the life of a child that served as her only connection to a husband who was taken from the world too soon. The only testament to the world that they have lost someone who mattered, who listened to the fears of a little boy in life, and now in death listen to the silent fears of a young man that cannot escape from some hidden secret that lies dormant in his blood.

"Hi, Mama."

A silent stone etched with her parting words, her final testimony to a long and difficult journey, bearing a burden of love and loss and possibility all bound together in a son she called Her Hope.

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_So, that was fun. I know Tolkien said that Gilraen didn't die until a handful of years before The War of the Rings, but I like this fanon a little bit better, where she dies way before. Tell me what you think, and I hope you enjoyed!_


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